No vote expected on infrastructure this week

No vote expected on infrastructure this week
No vote expected on infrastructure this week
rarrarorro/iStock

(WASHINGTON) — House Democratic leaders are pulling the plug on infrastructure this week.

The plan to vote on the $1 trillion infrastructure bill Thursday is now officially canceled, according to sources familiar with the situation.

That means President Joe Biden will not get a vote on the bill Thursday night as he lands in Rome.

Sources confirm that the House will instead vote on a short-term bill to extend surface transportation authorization Thursday, as it’s due to expire Sunday.

In a last-minute push before heading overseas, and after months of torturous negotiations, Biden on Thursday announced a “framework” of his economic plan in an effort to get all Democrats behind his social spending and climate policy agenda.

“No one got everything they wanted, including me, but that’s what compromise is. That’s consensus. And that’s what I ran on,” Biden said in remarks from the White House East Room.

Before taking the world stage, Biden put public pressure on members of his own party, especially House progressives, to come together to support what he pitched as a “fundamental game-changer,” laying out the details of the $1.75 trillion package he presented to House Democrats earlier Thursday morning.

“I ran for president saying it was time to reduce the burden on the middle class to rebuild the backbone of this nation working people in the middle class. It couldn’t have been any clearer — the very moment I announced my candidacy. That’s why I wrote these bills in the first place and took them to the people,” Biden said, using the presidential bully pulpit.

“I campaigned on that and the American people spoke. This agenda that’s in these bills is what 81 million Americans voted for. More people voted than any time in American history,” Biden said. “Their voices deserve to be heard. Not denied, or worse, ignored.”

But as the day went on it still wasn’t clear all Democrats, especially progressives, were on board, even at the risk of a major embarrassment for Biden.

In an afternoon news conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared upbeat when announcing the roughly 2,500-page social spending proposal was headed for markup, but did not commit to a vote on the bipartisan package on Thursday. She dodged when asked by ABC News Congressional Correspondent whether she trusts Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who have been holdouts on provisions most Democrats support.

“I trust the president of the United States,” she said. “And again, the text is out there if they have some — anybody, any senator, any House member — have some suggestions about where their comfort level is or their dismay might be — then we welcome that, but I trust the president of the United States.”

Four weeks of federally paid family leave is out — a major blow to progressives — but done to cut the framework’s price tag in hopes that holdouts Manchin and Sinema would pledge their support for the social spending framework. House progressives were insisting on that before a House vote on the already Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Sinema signaled her support for the framework in a statement hailing “significant progress” — but it didn’t mention the word “deal.”

Late in the day Thursday, Manchin said, “We negotiated a good number.”

But Sen. Bernie Sanders, who wields large influence with the House progressive caucus, actively encouraged progressive colleagues in the House to hold out and oppose a vote now on the bipartisan infrastructure package until they see the legislative text of the larger social spending package and get assurances from all 50 senators that they support it.

“I want to see it improved,” Sanders told reporters. He noted the significance of the proposal but said “it has some major gaps in it.”

The progressive caucus later voted internally to endorse Biden’s framework but to hold the line until the social spending bill is ready for a vote.

That all but guaranteed the bipartisan bill would not pass Thursday, even if a vote was held.

A senior Capitol Hill official confirmed that Pelosi had told House Democrats to not “embarrass” Biden by voting down the infrastructure bill Thursday as he headed overseas.

The remarks were made behind closed doors at the Democratic caucus meeting Thursday morning and were first reported by CNN.

In his speech, Biden promoted the framework’s provisions on climate policy, another progressive priority, ahead of the COP26 UN global climate summit, saying even his scaled-back plan will “grow the domestic industries, create good-paying union jobs” and address “long-standing environmental injustices.”

“We’ll build up our resilience for the next storm, drought, wildfires and hurricanes that indicate a blinking code red for America and the world,” he said, noting natural disasters have cost $99 billion in damage to the U.S. in the last several years. Setting up a question to those who argue his plan costs too much, “We’re not spending any money to deal with this?”

He said his plan would not raise taxes on the middle class but “would continue cutting taxes for the middle class,” and instead raise them on the nation’s wealthiest Americans and corporations, whom Democrats argue haven’t been paying their fair share.

Biden can’t afford to lose a single vote in the Senate and only three votes in the House. He delayed his foreign trip to head to the Hill and lobby members of his own party to back the legislation he campaigned on.

Earlier, he pulled up to the Capitol shortly after 9 a.m., and then flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, responded only with “It’s a good day” to a reporter asking what his message is to House progressives who don’t trust Manchin and Sinema — holdouts throughout the extended and often chaotic bargaining.

When reporters shouted, “Do you think you have enough of a framework to get progressives to support the infrastructure bill?” Biden responded “Yes.”

About an hour later, as he emerged, Biden told reporters, “I think we’re going to be in good shape,” but declined to answer more questions as he left the Capitol.

Biden was met inside the meeting with multiple standing ovations, sources told to ABC News, with some members standing up and shouting, “Vote, vote, vote!”

Democratic leaders were eager to put the infrastructure bill on the floor as soon as Thursday, but Pelosi — who doesn’t call for votes unless she knows has the support for passage — hadn’t officially called for one.

House Progressives emerged from a closed-door meeting and commended Biden for framework, but they still insisted they will vote no on the infrastructure bill if it hit the floor until a firm deal is made on the larger spending package.

“There are too many no votes for the BIF to pass today,” said Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.

“He did not ask for a vote on the bill today,” she said earlier in the day, referring to the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill. “The speaker did. He did not. He said he wants votes on both bills and said what we do on these two bills is going to be determinative for how the world sees us.”

Before his speech, the White House teased Biden’s remarks on his domestic agenda ahead his international trip, saying he is “delivering” on his promises to rebuild the middle class.

“After hearing input from all sides and negotiating in good faith with Senators Manchin and Sinema, Congressional Leadership, and a broad swath of Members of Congress, President Biden is announcing a framework for the Build Back Better Act,” said a White House statement that notably did not say he had an agreement.

“President Biden is confident this is a framework that can pass both houses of Congress, and he looks forward to signing it into law. He calls on Congress to take up this historic bill – in addition to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – as quickly as possible,” the statement said.

The White House said “the framework will save most American families more than half of their spending on child care, deliver two years of free preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old in America, give more than 35 million families a major tax cut by extending the expanded Child Tax Credit, and expand access to high-quality home care for older Americans and people with disabilities.”

The Child Tax Credit expansion, which Biden proposed extending until 2025, would now be only until the end of 2022. Paid family and medical leave, which Biden had originally proposed to be 12 weeks and then scaled back to four weeks, appeared to have been dropped altogether after Manchin objected, despite progressives fighting back. Two free years of community college that Biden had promised is not included.

It also claimed it represents “the largest effort to combat climate change in American history” and “the biggest expansion of affordable health care coverage in a decade,” saying it would “reduce premiums for more than 9 million Americans by extending the expanded Premium Tax Credit, deliver health care coverage to up to 4 million uninsured people in states that have locked them out of Medicaid, and help older Americans access affordable hearing care by expanding Medicare.”

An expansion of Medicare to cover dental and vision, a top priority of Sen. Bernie Sanders, is not in the framework.

And, the White House said, “it is fully paid for … by making sure that large, profitable corporations can’t zero out their tax bills, no longer rewarding corporations that shift jobs and profits overseas, asking more from millionaires and billionaires, and stopping rich Americans from cheating on their tax bills.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Former New York Gov. Cuomo charged with misdemeanor sex crime

Former New York Gov. Cuomo charged with misdemeanor sex crime
Former New York Gov. Cuomo charged with misdemeanor sex crime
Bennett Raglin/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been charged with a misdemeanor sex crime in Albany City Court, according to a spokesman for the New York State Court System.

The complaint, filed by an Albany County Sheriff’s Department investigator, accused Cuomo of forcible touching.

The alleged crime took place at the governor’s mansion on December 7, 2020 when Cuomo “intentionally and for no legitimate purpose” forcibly placed his hand under the blouse of an unnamed victim and onto an intimate body part.

“Specifically, the victims left breast for the purposes of degrading and gratifying his sexual desires, all contrary to the provisions of the statute in such case made and provided,” the complaint said.

Cuomo resigned in August following a monthslong investigation by State Attorney General Letitia James that found he sexually harassed 11 women, including current and former state employees.

“Specifically, we find that the Governor sexually harassed a number of current and former New York State employees by, among other things, engaging in unwelcome and nonconsensual touching, as well as making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women,” the report said.

Following his resignation, Cuomo said the report was politicized and that there was a rush to judgment.

“Let me say now that when government politicizes allegations and the headlines condemn without facts, you undermine the justice system and that doesn’t serve women and it doesn’t serve men or society,” Cuomo said during his farewell address. “I understand that there are moments of intense political pressure and media frenzy that cause a rush to judgment, but that is not right. It’s not fair or sustainable. Facts still matter.”

Cuomo was replaced by then Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Facebook announces it is changing company name to Meta amid mounting controversies

Facebook announces it is changing company name to Meta amid mounting controversies
Facebook announces it is changing company name to Meta amid mounting controversies
Thinkhubstudio/iStock

(NEW YORK) — In the shadow of mounting controversies for his beleaguered tech firm, CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out his vision for the future of the internet at a company conference Thursday, which he sees as evolving on the so-called “metaverse.”

Zuckerberg also announced that the name of his tech giant will be changed to “Meta” to reflect the shifting interests, though critics have accused the company of attempting to use its high-profile name change announcement to shift focus from the renewed scrutiny it has faced from lawmakers and beyond in recent weeks.

The metaverse, a three-dimensional digital world created by augmented and virtual reality products and services, will be “the successor to the mobile internet,” Zuckerberg said during his keynote speech to kick off Facebook’s Connect conference on Thursday. The chief executive demonstrated some of the experiences he said will soon be available in the digital realm — including connecting with friends and family, gaming, working out and even working remotely via a digital avatar and VR hardware.

“We’re now looking at and reporting on our business as two different segments, one for our family of apps and one for work on future platforms, and as part of this, it is time for us to adopt a new company brand to encompass everything that we do to reflect who we are and what we hope to build,” he said.

“I am proud to announce that starting today, our company is now meta,” Zuckerberg added.

The Facebook chief said the word comes from the Greek term for “beyond,” and is meant to symbolize that “there is always more to build, there is always a next chapter to the story.”

“Our mission remains the same still about bringing people together, our apps and their brands, they’re not changing either,” the CEO added. “We’re still the company that designs technology around people, now we have a new North Star to help bring the metaverse to life, and we have a new name that reflects the full breadth of what we do and the future that we want to help build.”

Finally, Zuckerberg said, “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.”

The name change announcement comes just weeks after a company whistleblower, Frances Haugen, testified before lawmakers, alleging blatant disregard from Facebook executives when they learned their platform could have harmful effects on democracy and the mental health of young people.

Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, accused Facebook of “choosing to prioritize its profits over people” in her opening statement before lawmakers on the Senate Commerce subcommittee.

“You can declare moral bankruptcy and we can figure out a fix [to] these things together because we solve problems together,” Haugen said.

Zuckerberg did not directly address Haugen’s claims during his remarks Thursday, saying only, “the last few years have been humbling for me and our company in a lot of ways.” During his remarks, which lasted over an hour, he mostly demonstrated how he sees people could use the metaverse and virtual or augmented reality tools in the near and far-off future.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

COVID-19 live updates: Global cases, deaths on the rise for 1st time in 2 months

COVID-19 live updates: Global cases, deaths on the rise for 1st time in 2 months
COVID-19 live updates: Global cases, deaths on the rise for 1st time in 2 months
Bill Oxford/iStock

(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 4.9 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 740,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Just 67.3% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Oct 28, 12:44 pm

Florida files lawsuit against Biden administration over vaccine mandate for federal contractors

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, arguing that the vaccine mandate for federal contractors is “unconstitutional.”

“Florida companies, public and private, receive millions of dollars in federal contracts annually and will be negatively impacted by the unlawful requirements,” a statement from Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said.

DeSantis said in a statement, “The federal government is exceeding their power and it is important for us to take a stand because in Florida we believe these are choices based on individual circumstances.”

Oct 28, 11:15 am

Global cases, deaths on the rise for 1st time in 2 months

The global number of COVID-19 cases and deaths are now increasing for the first time in two months, largely driven by an ongoing rise in Europe that outweighs declines in other regions, W.H.O. Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday.

The highest case increases in the last two weeks were in the Czech Republic (up by 234%), Hungary (up by 200%) and Poland (up by 183%), according to the W.H.O.

The director-general attributed ongoing infections “in large part” to inequitable access to tests and vaccines.

“Eighty-times more tests, and 30 times more vaccines, have been administered in high-income countries than low-income countries,” Tedros said. “If the 6.8 billion vaccine doses administered globally so far had been distributed equitably, we would have reached our 40% target in every country by now.”

-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou

Oct 28, 10:11 am
5 states see hospital admissions jump by at least 15%

Hospital admissions have fallen by about 55% since late August, according to federal data.

But five states have seen at least a 15% increase in hospital admissions over the last two weeks: Alaska (21.7%), Colorado (15.9%), Maine (35.3%), New Hampshire (38.9%) and New Mexico (19.6%).

Alaska currently has the country’s highest infection rate, followed by Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Idaho.

The U.S. reported approximately 1,600 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday alone. Deaths are about 1.5 times higher in non-metropolitan areas than in metropolitan areas, according to federal data.

Oct 28, 9:38 am
Colorado ICU beds at lowest point of pandemic

Colorado’s number of ICU beds is at the lowest point of the pandemic following a dramatic spike in hospitalizations and the winding down of extra beds added in the last surge.

Colorado currently has 1,191 COVID-19 patients, according to state data, and 29% of hospitals anticipate an ICU bed shortage in the next week.

State health officials told ABC News that hospitals in El Paso County have turned away transfer requests over the lack of beds.

“We are continuing to move very much in the wrong direction,” Scott Bookman, the state’s COVID-19 chief, said at a briefing.

Oct 27, 6:43 pm
New York City braces for possible mandate-related reduction in fire, EMS service

New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said Wednesday he’s preparing to make major operational changes next week as significant portion of the city’s firefighters and EMS personnel haven’t complied with the city’s vaccine mandate.

“We will use all means at our disposal, including mandatory overtime, mutual aid from other EMS providers, and significant changes to the schedules of our members,” he said in a statement.

The mandate for all New York City public employees will go into effect at the end of day Friday. The FDNY said that 65% of its members were vaccinated as of Wednesday.

An FDNY official told ABC News that by Monday fire and ambulance services could be reduced by as much as 20%.

FDNY leadership has held virtual meetings with uniformed staff explaining the vaccine mandate and imploring them to comply, and will continue doing so throughout the week, the official said.

Oct 27, 3:29 pm
CDC advisers to vote Nov. 2 on pediatric vaccines

The CDC’s independent advisors plan to discuss and hold a non-binding vote on the recommendations for the pediatric vaccine on Nov. 2.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky will likely endorse those recommendations for 5 to 11-year-olds following the vote that day.

Vaccinations can start as soon as Walensky sends out final recommendations.

Meanwhile, the FDA’s decision to authorize the pediatric vaccine is expected in the coming days.

Oct 27, 10:22 am
Nearly two-thirds of Americans have had at least 1 vaccine dose

Nearly two-thirds of all Americans — 220 million people — have had at least one vaccine dose, according to federal data.

But 111 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated, including about 48 million children under the age of 12, who are not yet eligible to get the shot.

National metrics continue to fall, according to federal data. About 51,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, down from 104,000 patients at the end of August

Deaths are are trending down, though numbers remain quite high at over 1,100 fatalities each day.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

DOJ reaches settlements with victims’ families in 2015 Charleston church shooting

DOJ reaches settlements with victims’ families in 2015 Charleston church shooting
DOJ reaches settlements with victims’ families in 2015 Charleston church shooting
John Moore/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Thursday announced it had reached settlements with the families of victims murdered by Dylann Roof in the 2015 Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting.

Families had sued the federal government in 2016 because Roof was able to purchase a gun to carry out the shooting, despite having a prior criminal history.

The civil case has since made its way through the court system, with a federal appeals court ruling that families could sue the government.

The shooting, which took place in June 2015 at the Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, killed nine African American worshippers.

“These settlements will resolve claims by 14 plaintiffs arising out of the shooting. Plaintiffs agreed to settle claims alleging that the FBI was negligent when it failed to prohibit the sale of a gun by a licensed firearms dealer to the shooter, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, who wanted to start a “race war” and specifically targeted the 200-year-old historically African-American congregation,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

“For those killed in the shooting, the settlements range from $6 million to $7.5 million per claimant. For the survivors, the settlements are for $5 million per claimant,” the DOJ statement said.

Roof, an avowed white supremacist, was sentenced to death, the first person to get the death penalty for a federal hate crime.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

What would happen to abortion access if Roe v. Wade is overturned or weakened: Report

What would happen to abortion access if Roe v. Wade is overturned or weakened: Report
What would happen to abortion access if Roe v. Wade is overturned or weakened: Report
zimmytws/iStock

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court has a real opportunity this year to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that made abortion a federally protected right, or otherwise lessen the right to abortion.

The court will be hearing a case out of Mississippi, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, that asks the justices to directly reconsider the landmark precedent in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which many court watchers believe is closer to a possibility than ever with the current makeup of the court.

Should the court decide to overturn Roe, the right to abortion in the United States would be decided on a state-by-state basis. In that case, 26 states are “certain or likely” to ban abortion, according to a new report published Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights research organization.

The domino effect of that in the extreme, according to Guttmacher’s report, would be that a person in Louisiana, where abortion would be banned, would have to drive 666 miles, one-way, on average to reach a provider. That’s a 1,720% increase from an average Louisianan’s current distance from a provider, which is 37 miles.

“Increases in driving distances would pose hurdles for many people,” Dr. Herminia Palacio, president and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, said in a statement. “However, research shows that some groups of people are disproportionately affected by abortion restrictions — including those with low incomes, people of color, young people, LGBTQ individuals and people in many rural communities.”

Twenty-one states already have laws on the books that would immediately ban abortion if Roe were overturned. This comes in the form of laws that predate Roe but were never removed from the books, so-called “trigger” laws that would go into effect in the event of the precedent being overturned, state constitutional amendments, and six- or eight-week bans that are not currently in effect but would ban nearly all abortions.

Five states in addition to those 21 are likely to ban abortion should Roe be overturned, the Guttmacher report says.

Those 26 states likely to ban abortion encompass a majority of the central United States, with the exception of Minnesota, Illinois, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. States on both coasts — excluding South Carolina, Georgia and Florida — are likely to keep abortion legal if Roe is overturned, according to the data. Guttmacher’s full report, including its data set and an interactive map, is available here.

However, that doesn’t mean people seeking abortions in states likely to keep the procedure legal would be unaffected. The Guttmacher report highlights that many of those states would become go-to destinations for people in states where abortion is banned. So a person seeking an abortion in Kansas could face a longer wait for an appointment because Kansas would be the nearest location for people from Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and other states to get an abortion.

This is already the case for people in Texas, where a near-total ban on abortion was allowed to go into effect in September. Since then, Texans have already traveled hundreds of miles to other states to obtain the procedure, as ABC News has documented. The Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to that law, focusing more on its enforcement mechanism than the right to abortion, next week.

The Supreme Court also does not need to fully remove protections to the right to abortion to have an impact. They could instead decide to weaken the stipulations of Roe, such as by limiting for how long into a pregnancy the right to abortion is protected.

The precedents of 1973’s Roe and 1992’s Casey encoded “the constitutionally protected liberty of the woman to decide to have an abortion before the fetus attains viability and to obtain it without undo interference from the State.”

“Viability” means a fetus can survive outside of a uterus, and that typically happens around 24 to 28 weeks. The Mississippi case the court is hearing in December is about a ban on abortion after 15 weeks. That is before viability, but after, say, the first trimester of a pregnancy.

The Guttmacher Institute report includes the impact if the right to abortion were still protected, but only up to 15 or 20 weeks.

According to the CDC’s latest data, 92.2% of abortions were performed at or before 13 weeks, and only 1% were at or after 21 weeks.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

California school safety officer charged with murder after fatally shooting 18-year-old woman

California school safety officer charged with murder after fatally shooting 18-year-old woman
California school safety officer charged with murder after fatally shooting 18-year-old woman
Michał Chodyra/iStock

(LOS ANGELES) — A California school safety officer has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old unarmed woman.

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced the charge against former Long Beach Unified School safety officer Eddie Gonzalez, whose arraignment is scheduled for Friday at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, Long Beach Branch. The case remains under investigation by Long Beach police.

“We must hold accountable the people we have placed in positions of trust to protect us,” Gascón said in a statement. “That is especially true for the armed personnel we traditionally have relied upon to guard our children on their way to and from and at school.”

On Sept. 27, Gonzalez was patrolling an area near Millikan High School in Long Beach when he noticed a physical altercation between the 18-year-old, Manuela Rodriguez, and a teenage girl.

Rodriguez tried to leave the scene and hopped into the rear passenger seat of a nearby car when Gonzalez allegedly fired his handgun at the vehicle and hit Rodriguez.

She was taken to a hospital, where she died Oct. 5. Rodriguez is said to have suffered brain damage before being declared brain dead and taken off life support, according to her family’s attorneys.

“Not only did he commit a horrible crime, he destroyed an entire family,” attorney Luis Carrillo said at a press conference.

Gonzalez was fired the following day by the Long Beach Board of Education for violating the district’s use-of-force policy.

According to school officials, the policy states that officers “shall not fire at a fleeing person,” “shall not fire at a moving vehicle” and “shall not fire through a vehicle window unless circumstances clearly warrant the use of a firearm as a final means of defense.”

In a statement, district school board officials said: “We will continue to monitor the progress of the criminal case and will defer questions on investigatory matters to law enforcement. We acknowledge the impact of this tragedy and we again extend our sincerest condolences to everyone who has been impacted, especially the family, friends and loved ones of the shooting victim, Manuela Rodriguez.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

COVID-19 live updates: Colorado’s available ICU beds at lowest point of pandemic

COVID-19 live updates: Global cases, deaths on the rise for 1st time in 2 months
COVID-19 live updates: Global cases, deaths on the rise for 1st time in 2 months
Bill Oxford/iStock

(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 4.9 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 740,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Just 67.3% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Oct 28, 10:11 am
5 states see hospital admissions jump by at least 15%

Hospital admissions have fallen by about 55% since late August, according to federal data.

But five states have seen at least a 15% increase in hospital admissions over the last two weeks: Alaska (21.7%), Colorado (15.9%), Maine (35.3%), New Hampshire (38.9%) and New Mexico (19.6%).

Alaska currently has the country’s highest infection rate, followed by Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Idaho.

The U.S. reported approximately 1,600 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday alone. Deaths are about 1.5 times higher in non-metropolitan areas than in metropolitan areas, according to federal data.

Oct 28, 9:38 am
Colorado ICU beds at lowest point of pandemic

Colorado’s number of ICU beds is at the lowest point of the pandemic following a dramatic spike in hospitalizations and the winding down of extra beds added in the last surge.

Colorado currently has 1,191 COVID-19 patients, according to state data, and 29% of hospitals anticipate an ICU bed shortage in the next week.

State health officials told ABC News that hospitals in El Paso County have turned away transfer requests over the lack of beds.

“We are continuing to move very much in the wrong direction,” Scott Bookman, the state’s COVID-19 chief, said at a briefing.

Oct 27, 6:43 pm
New York City braces for possible mandate-related reduction in fire, EMS service

New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said Wednesday he’s preparing to make major operational changes next week as significant portion of the city’s firefighters and EMS personnel haven’t complied with the city’s vaccine mandate.

“We will use all means at our disposal, including mandatory overtime, mutual aid from other EMS providers, and significant changes to the schedules of our members,” he said in a statement.

The mandate for all New York City public employees will go into effect at the end of day Friday. The FDNY said that 65% of its members were vaccinated as of Wednesday.

An FDNY official told ABC News that by Monday fire and ambulance services could be reduced by as much as 20%.

FDNY leadership has held virtual meetings with uniformed staff explaining the vaccine mandate and imploring them to comply, and will continue doing so throughout the week, the official said.

Oct 27, 3:29 pm
CDC advisers to vote Nov. 2 on pediatric vaccines

The CDC’s independent advisors plan to discuss and hold a non-binding vote on the recommendations for the pediatric vaccine on Nov. 2.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky will likely endorse those recommendations for 5 to 11-year-olds following the vote that day.

Vaccinations can start as soon as Walensky sends out final recommendations.

Meanwhile, the FDA’s decision to authorize the pediatric vaccine is expected in the coming days.

Oct 27, 10:22 am
Nearly two-thirds of Americans have had at least 1 vaccine dose

Nearly two-thirds of all Americans — 220 million people — have had at least one vaccine dose, according to federal data.

But 111 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated, including about 48 million children under the age of 12, who are not yet eligible to get the shot.

National metrics continue to fall, according to federal data. About 51,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, down from 104,000 patients at the end of August

Deaths are are trending down, though numbers remain quite high at over 1,100 fatalities each day.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Why the Second Amendment may be overstated in the gun debate

Why the Second Amendment may be overstated in the gun debate
Why the Second Amendment may be overstated in the gun debate
Artfully79/iStock

This report is a part of “Rethinking Gun Violence,” an ABC News series examining the level of gun violence in the U.S. — and what can be done about it.

(NEW YORK) — In the bitter debate over gun control, battle lines are often drawn around the Second Amendment, with many in favor of gun rights pointing to it as the source of their constitutional authority to bear arms, and some in favor of tighter gun control disagreeing with that interpretation.

But if the purpose of the debate is to reduce the tragic human toll of gun violence, the focus on Second Amendment is often misplaced, according to many experts on guns and the Constitution.

They say the battle lines that actually matter have been drawn around state legislatures, which are setting the country’s landscape on guns through state laws — or sometimes, the lack thereof.

Joseph Blocher, professor of law and co-director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke Law School, described the patchwork of state laws that exists across the country as a “buffer zone” for the Second Amendment.

“Before you even get to the Constitution, there’s a huge array of other laws super protecting the right to keep and bear arms,” Blocher said. “This collection of laws is giving individuals lots of protection for gun-related activity that the Second Amendment would not necessarily require, and certainly, and in almost all of these instances, that no lower court has said the Second Amendment would require.”

Adam Winkler, a professor of law at the UCLA School of Law, also said the Second Amendment is losing its legal relevance in distinguishing lawful policies from unlawful ones as the gap between what he calls the “judicial Second Amendment” and the “aspirational Second Amendment” widens.

Winkler defines the “judicial Second Amendment” as how courts interpret the constitutional provision in their decisions, and the “aspirational Second Amendment” as how the amendment is used in political dialogue. The latter is “far more hostile to gun laws than the judicial one,” he said — and also more prevalent.

“The aspirational Second Amendment is overtaking the judicial Second Amendment in American law,” he wrote in the Indiana Law Journal in 2018, a sentiment he repeated in a recent interview with ABC News. “State law is embracing such a robust, anti-regulatory view of the right to keep and bear arms that the judicial Second Amendment, at least as currently construed, seems likely to have less and less to say about the shape of America’s gun laws.”

Winkler told ABC News the aspirational or “political” Second Amendment has become the basis for expanding gun rights in the last 40 years.

“In the judicial Second Amendment, gun rights advocates haven’t found that much protection,” Winkler said. “Where they found protection was by getting state legislatures, in the name of the Second Amendment, to legislate for permissive gun laws.”

The debate around the Second Amendment (and why some say it might be overrated)

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads in full:

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The role of the Second Amendment, like many constitutional rights, is to put limits on what regulations the federal government can pass, and scholars and lawyers have debated its scope since it was ratified in 1791.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision in 2008, much of the debate revolved around the meaning of a “well-regulated militia.” The Heller decision struck down a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., and established the right for individuals to have a gun for certain private purposes including self-defense in the home. The court expanded private gun ownership protection two years later in McDonald v. City of Chicago, determining that state and local governments are also bound to the Second Amendment.

“The Bill of Rights, by its terms, only applies to the federal government, but the Supreme Court, through a doctrine known as incorporation, has made almost all of its guarantees applicable against state and local governments as well. That’s what the question was in McDonald,” Blocher said. “But some states have chosen to go above and beyond what the court laid out.”

Notably, the court in Heller carved out limitations on that individual right and preserved a relatively broad range of possible gun regulation — such as allowing for their restriction in government buildings, schools and polling places — but in many instances, state legislatures have decided not to use the authority that the court has granted them.

“Most states have chosen not to use their full regulatory authority,” Blocher said. “If a state decides not to forbid people from having large-capacity magazines, for instance, that doesn’t necessarily result in a law. It can be the absence of a law that has the most impact.”

It goes back to that widening gap between the judicial Second Amendment as the courts interpret it and the aspirational Second Amendment as used in politics, according to Winkler and Blocher.

“There’s a difference between the Second Amendment as interpreted and applied by courts and the Second Amendment as it’s invoked in political discussions. And for many gun rights advocates, the political version of the Second Amendment is quite a bit more gun protective than the Second Amendment as the Supreme Court and lower courts have applied it,” he said.

Laws based on the ‘aspirational’ Second Amendment

There are a few laws many experts say bolster gun rights in ways the Second Amendment does not explicitly require.

In more than 40 states, preemption laws expressly limit cities from regulating guns — with some going so far as to impose punitive damages such as fines and lawsuits on officials who challenge the state’s rules. This means, even if a highly populated city had overwhelming support to pass a local ordinance regulating guns, a preemption law in the state would restrict local officials from taking any action.

After the National Rifle Association formed its own political action committee in 1977, it began targeting state legislatures with the preemption model and found it was a more effective way to bolster the rights of gun owners than going through Congress.

The effort picked up momentum when a challenge, on Second Amendment grounds, to a local ordinance in Illinois banning handgun ownership failed in 1982 — years ahead of the 2008 Heller decision. So, he said, the NRA raised the specter of Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove to lobby for preemption laws in order to lessen local governments’ abilities to regulate guns in the first place.

In 1979, two states in the U.S. had full preemption and five states had partial preemption laws. By 1989, 18 states had full preemption laws and three had partial, according to Kristin Goss in her book “Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America.”

“There’s been a concerted effort by gun rights organizations to enact gun-friendly legislation in the states. And they do so using the rhetoric of the Second Amendment, even though nothing about the Second Amendment necessarily requires the state to pass such legislation,” said Darrell Miller, another expert on gun law at Duke University School of Law.

While a densely populated area with a high crime rate may want to enact stricter gun policies not necessarily suited for other areas in a state, preemption laws restrict local governments from doing so.

For example, in Colorado, a preemption law had prevented cities and municipalities from passing gun regulation measures. Boulder tried to ban semi-automatic weapons in 2018 after a gunman with an AR-15-style rifle opened fire at a high school in Parkland, Florida, leaving 17 dead and surpassing the Columbine High School shooting as the deadliest high school shooting in American history.

But a state court struck down the ban on March 12 of this year — 10 days before a 21-year-old man with a semi-automatic Ruger AR-556 pistol killed 10 people at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder. The judge’s decision did not hang on the Second Amendment but rather a violation of Colorado’s preemption law.

Colorado in June became the first state to repeal its preemption law — a move gun-regulation activists such as those at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence have hailed as a reflection of what voters want. More than half of Americans support more gun regulation, according to data from recent surveys by Pew Research Center and Gallup.

There’s also the presence of “permitless carry regimes,” said Jake Charles, another gun law expert at Duke University, which is when legislatures interpret the Second Amendment as giving individuals the right to bear arms in public without a permit, an interpretation the Supreme Court has not made.

In all 50 states, it is legal to carry a concealed handgun in public, subject to varying restrictions depending on the state, but at least 20 do not require permits for either open or concealed carry of firearms, with Texas becoming the latest to enact what advocates call “constitutional carry.”

Permitless or “constitutional carry” is not something the Supreme Court’s reading of the Second Amendment currently calls for.

Experts say that could change.

In New York state, a person is currently required to prove a special need for self-protection outside the home to receive a permit to carry a concealed firearm. A challenge to the constitutionality of a “may-issue” permit law, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Corlett, will be heard by the Supreme Court this fall — the court’s first major case on guns in a decade, coming as the makeup of the court swings right due to three appointments from former President Donald Trump.

“There are about half a dozen states which have laws similar to New York’s, so if the court strikes it down, we can expect to see challenges to those states’ laws in short order,” Blocher said.

The partisan debate continues

Allison Anderman, senior counsel at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, stressed that, in part because of the influence of state statutes, the Second Amendment should not be a barrier to gun regulation.

She also said that because the Second Amendment’s political definition is entrenched in the true, judicial one, the debate surrounding it gets muddied up and the passion is, perhaps, misplaced.

“It’s a rallying cry. It’s easy. It’s a sound bite,” she said. “But the Second Amendment gets thrown around politically in a way that’s not based in law.”

Blocher agreed and argued the Second Amendment debate is among the most partisan in the nation.

“The gun debate has gone far beyond judicial interpretations of the Second Amendment and these days has much more to do with personal, political and partisan identity,” he said.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

With holidays looming, scientists point to additional data showing value of vaccines

With holidays looming, scientists point to additional data showing value of vaccines
With holidays looming, scientists point to additional data showing value of vaccines
SergeyChayko/iStock

(NEW YORK) — The summer surge of COVID-19, fueled by the delta variant, raised alarm bells among scientists and citizens alike that unlike prior variants of the virus, this one was different.

Those fears solidified in July, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported an outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts, among mostly vaccinated people. This early data hinted, alarmingly, that the delta variant could be equally likely to spread among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.

Prior to the emergence of the delta variant, the risk of spreading the virus while vaccinated appeared to be so low the CDC said it was safe for vaccinated people to ditch their masks. But CDC Director Rochelle Walensky described the Provincetown findings as “concerning,” and she promptly reversed the agency’s mask guidelines for vaccinated people, prompting renewed fear and uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines against variants.

“I think the people who are really concerned are parents with children under 12 who are concerned that even if they’re vaccinated, they could have a breakthrough infection and transmit it to their unvaccinated children,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “I get that.”

But reassuringly, experts told ABC News, new studies show those fears may have been overblown.

“Data are coming out that it’s the opposite,” said Dr. Paul Goepfert, an infectious disease physician and director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic.

The CDC’s Provincetown study relied on something called viral load — the amount of virus in a person’s body. Researchers found that viral load levels were the same in vaccinated and unvaccinated people, prompting speculation the virus transmits just as readily among a vaccinated person. But viral loads change over time.

“The problem with the Provincetown study is they just looked at one early point in time,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel member and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“That’s just the first time point,” Goepfert said. “If you keep following them, they’re much less infectious more rapidly.”

Experts said there’s no doubt the delta variant is among the most hyper-transmissible versions of the virus to have emerged. That hyper-transmissibility makes it possible to spread between vaccinated people. But that risk is still low. Even if the delta variant is transmissible among vaccinated people, new data suggests “it’s for a shorter period of time” compared to the unvaccinated, said Durbin.

In late July, researchers following patients in Singapore who had breakthrough infections with the delta variant after vaccinations with mRNA vaccines — such as Pfizer and Moderna — showed this exact decrease in infectivity. The study compared viral load counts during the first few weeks of each breakthrough infection. The delta variant caused the same peak viral load in all infected individuals — a sign of active infection and risk of infectious spreading — but the vaccinated group cleared the infection faster.

Research by a separate group found similar results with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is authorized in many countries outside the United States. In that study, researchers found that being vaccinated also appeared to shorten the time of breakthrough infection by the delta variant, according to an abstract presented at the Infectious Disease Society of America’s conference in early October.

Both studies have yet to be peer reviewed, but vaccine experts said they offer reassuring evidence that being vaccinated still dramatically reduces the risk of spreading the virus to a friend or loved one — even the highly-transmissible delta variant.

As families prepare for the 2021 holiday season, those who are vaccinated can rest assured that there’s increasing evidence that being vaccinated remains the best defense against the spread of infection, especially in the event of an unlikely breakthrough case.

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